Ramblings about words, art, books, the media and Golden Age detective stories

Saturday, 15 May 2010

Styles and Genres

Osbert Lancaster, in Pillar to Post and Homes, Sweet Homes, nailed some pretentious styles of the interwar years with epithets like Banker’s Georgian, Stockbroker’s Tudor and Bypass Variegated. Here are a few more that reveal a place, a time, an attitude, a level of aspiration.

advertisers’ nostalgia How could anyone who had read the book and who had any respect for literature… turn this story of glum penny-pinched '30s London into 1990s-style standard advertiser's jolly-jumpered "Heritage" golden nostalgia? (imdb on Keep the Aspidistra Flying)

airline stewardess chic

album-cover art (Damien Hirst)

boho chic

Bungalow Bliss (era in Ireland)

cocktail grunge

consumptive poet rock

cup and saucer comedy

diorama décorEdwardabethan (Richard Thompson)festival chic

folktronica

French flea market (old posters and ads for drinks)

Gin and Jag Belt Does it still exist? Yes, apparently it’s in Maidenhead, according to a government report of January 2003.

haunt rock

heroin chic

high tech

Joke Oak

Marks and Spencer Zen: beige, white, brown and piles of large pebbles. (Briefly Woolworths zen, before the chain went bust.)